The Mauritanian (Guantánamo Diary)

The second chapter is the first in the “BEFORE” section, which features a reverse chronological narrative. While the first chapter introduces the focal point of the text (the author’s detention at Guantanamo), the second chapter begins to reveal the genesis of the US government’s interest in Slahi. The issues that placed Slahi under US suspicion were his visit to Afghanistan, his cousin and former brother-in-law Mahfouz Ould al-Walid’s links to al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, and the false perception that Slahi’s time in Canada was linked to the Millennium Plot by the Canadian and US authorities because he unwittingly crossed paths with Ahmed Ressam. This chapter foregrounds the theme of Racism, Islamophobia, and the US War on Terror.

The first issue was Slahi’s trip to Afghanistan in 1990-1991, when he’d just turned 20. He viewed the events in that country as “the struggle against communism” (92) in which he needed to help those whom he considered his brothers in the faith. Because of his age, he appeared unaware of the geopolitical complexities of that country’s role in the Cold War struggle between the US and the Soviet Union. In late 1979, Soviet troops entered Afghanistan, which bordered it, upon the invitation of the secular, socialist Afghan government, to stabilize its domestic situation. Months earlier, before the Soviet entry into Afghanistan, the US had begun to covertly prepare the mujahideen to challenge the Soviet Union, as the biography of the CIA chief Robert Gates reveals (Gates, Robert, From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider’s Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997, pp. 144-46). Several other countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, also funded the mujahideen, whom the West then described as “freedom fighters.” The Soviet Union pulled out in 1989, and in 1991, the country dissolved, leaving the secular Afghan government led by Mohammad Najibullah on its own, engulfed in a civil war. During this time, Salahi traveled to Afghanistan to participate in that war. Also in the early 1990s, some mujahideen began to transform into what later became the terrorist organization al-Qaeda. Thus, US foreign policy in the region helped create what later became its foe, as Slahi notes throughout this book. Overall, the author is quite open about his objectives for traveling to Afghanistan in 1990-1991 and his thinking in his youth, which gives his story plausibility.

Slahi’s cousin Mahfouz Ould al-Walid, known as Abu Hafs al-Mauritani, was part of what became al-Qaeda as one of its spiritual leaders. In the 2000s, Abu Hafs was in custody in Iran and was then extradited to Mauritania. He was released from prison in 2012 following his condemnation of the 9/11 attacks and his renunciation of al-Qaeda. Abu Hafs opposed the 9/11 attacks even before they were carried out. Of particular interest to the US government was that Hafs had asked Slahi to wire money to his family in Mauritania when Slahi lived in Germany. On one occasion, US intelligence listened to Slahi’s phone call with his cousin, who used a satellite phone linked to Osama bin Laden. In this case, the suspicions appear reasonable. However, the 2010 opinion on Slahi’s habeas corpus, Slahi v. Obama, and the Administrative Review Board materials reveal that any admissions about Slahi’s connection to al-Qaeda were coerced. In 2010, the judge stated that “the government relies on nothing but Slahi’s uncorroborated, coerced statements to conclude that the money transfers were done on behalf of and in support of al-Qa’ida” (Salahi v. Obama, 710 F.Supp.2d 1 [D.D.C 2010]). Thus, it appears that Slahi’s relationship with Abu Hafs was based on familial ties and the desire to help his relatives rather than his participation in a terrorist organization.

In addition, the US perceived a link between Ahmed Ressam and the author simply because the two resided in Montreal, Canada, and attended the same mosque. Ressam, an al-Qaeda member, was at the center of the failed Millennium Plot. He crossed the border from Canada to the US in 1999 with the intention of blowing up Los Angeles International Airport. Ressam was convicted of this offense in 2001 and has since been serving a lengthy prison sentence in the US. However, neither the Canadian nor the US government found any evidence linking Slahi to Ressam or the Millennium Plot.

Canada’s role in Slahi’s detention at Guantanamo is the reason he sued the Canadian government in 2022: “Canadian intelligence wished I were a criminal, so they could make up for their failure when Ahmed Ressam slipped from their country to the U.S. carrying explosives” (97). In addition, Canada’s role reveals one of the book’s minor themes: international cooperation under US pressure. In this chapter specifically, the author argues that Canada was eager to please the US because the US blamed it “for being a preparation ground for terrorist attacks against the US” (97). Throughout the book, Slahi also states that in his view Canada and the US are almost the same country in this regard. Similarly, he argues that Mauritania wasn’t sovereign when it cooperated with the US regarding his initial detention and his subsequent extradition to Jordan.

Another important minor theme here concerns the blurred lines between the “civilized world” and a “dictatorship” (95). The purpose of bringing up this theme is twofold. First, Slahi uses it to highlight his initial naivete about the US government’s interest in him: “I wish they had turned me over to the U.S.: at least there are things I could refer to there, such as the law” (93). During his detention in Mauritania, he believed that the US would treat him fairly, follow the rule of law, use factual evidence, and present it in front of a court. However, as Chapter 1 already revealed, Slahi was treated extrajudicially at Guantanamo. Thus, even self-described democracies bypass their own rules when it suits them. Second, the “BEFORE” section emphasizes how the US used political pressure and relied on third-party countries, such as Mauritania, Jordan, and Afghanistan, to coerce information from detainees. After all, these detainees knew that in such states, where the rule of law was habitually ignored, the possibility of torture was high. Ultimately, this underscores the fact that the state—whether a self-professed democracy or a dictatorship—retains the monopoly on violence.

Slahi relies on two key literary motifs in this chapter. First, he continues to use the term “ghost.” Here, he describes being “encircled by a bunch of ghosts” (76) during his arrest in Senegal. He uses this term to describe either the exhausted detainees or the faceless agents of the security state. Second, he uses Mauritanian folktales (here and throughout the book). In this chapter, he tells the story of a man who believes that a rooster thinks he’s corn and wants to eat him. He asks a psychiatrist for help. The psychiatrist tries to convince him that he can’t be mistaken for corn. However, the man instead asks the psychiatrist to tell the rooster that he isn’t corn. Slahi uses folktales to draw parallels between his own experiences and to highlight his situation’s absurdity: “For years I’ve been trying to convince the U.S. government that I am not corn” (73). His sense of humor lightens the difficult moments in the text.